he took the debt limit and put that on the floor and harry reid said i'm going to take a look at it and get back to you. few hours he said hey, mitch, let's do it. and we have the votes let's put it on the floor and mitch mcconnell said only if there's a 60 vote thresh hold and republicans lost a lot of leverage there. this -- remember the debt ceiling limit was something republicans thought they could deal on going forward and that they could maybe get some spending cuts and agreement to raise the debt limit. >> they thought they had the upper hand. mitch mcconnell sort of blew his own leverage. dick gephardt and the others you've spoken to say about the way the current leadership is handling this. >> they're optimistic. when i talk to the former house majority leader gephardt yesterday, he said i feel like there's a rhythm to these things and we're in a rhythm now where the principles, the president and speaker are talking and not leaking those calls. if you saw both the white house was very cagey about the call yesterday between the two men, speaker boehner wouldn't talk about the --